Motorcycle Repair and the Art of Overcoming Gender Roles
After being plowed down by an SUV while commuting on my scooter, I did the natural thing and bought myself a Kawasaki Ninja 250R.
It’s a perfect bike for me but it still has involved a bit of a learning curve. Starting with a scooter got me used to being on two wheels but it also encouraged some habits that don’t work out so well on a motorcycle. For example, I had a tendency to park with my front wheel to the curb instead of backing in. With the scooter, that worked marvelously but I’ve had a couple of embarrassing moments taking 5-10 minutes to pull the bike out of a parking spot. Turns out it’s a little heavier.
I’ve also had to learn to shift and though that’s mostly been smooth sailing, I have a tough time with hills and using my back brake and not stalling and not falling over.
So naturally, on a beautiful ride to Mercer Island, I was going up a really steep hill to a stop sign, forgot to shift down, stalled, had my wheels ready to make the next turn and slowly tipped over, cursing the whole way down. Not a big deal, but the right footpeg bracket — the piece that attaches the pedal and brake to the frame — was a victim. We fashioned an amazing rope brace and I was on my way.
The complete truth is that it was Yaw who did the splinting as I stood around and watched. It was my bike and I know how to tie knots but he grabbed the rope, got to work, and I just made encouraging remarks.
I was happy to find the replacement piece for $60 on cheapcycleparts.com and put in an order right away though I knew I’d be out of town for a month. I had to beg Yaw not to fix it before I got back. On my return, we went down to the garage to inspect the damage and Yaw expertly kneeled down, cut out the brace and started narrating what the fix would entail. I essentially had to chase him away just to get near the bike. He said he’d check in with me in an hour and did not seem terribly convinced that I’d be successful.
The fix required removing five bolts and an e-clip, putting the replacement piece in and putting the fasteners back in. It took me about a half hour and most of that time was spent trying to get enough leverage to loosen the bolts. When I came back upstairs to wash up, Yaw’s comment was “already?!” Unsurprising since his initial analysis of the work to do turned out to be wrong. For some reason, he essentially wanted to take apart everything there was to take apart, whether required or not and I’m sure he would have taken much longer to get to the same results.
I think that for whatever reason, mechanical tinkering and computer-based tinkering are typically similar in the reactions they elicit in women and the men around them so this story may have some relevance to how I approach women in my computer science courses. Some things that occurred to me:
- There’s significant value to taking the time to design a good solution before rolling up one’s sleeves. I need to be even more deliberate about encouraging this in my students, particularly in my boys who have more of a tendency to grab the keyboard and head off in the entirely wrong direction. Similarly, I need to celebrate the students who do good design work — typically my girls. This may be where some of what I learned at the TeachScheme workshop will really come in handy.
- I need to watch the tone boys use when talking to girls about their attempts and successes. Yaw is a pretty amazing guy all around and about as far from sexist as one can be but the way he said “I’ll check in on you in an hour” was not very encouraging. Similarly, his reaction when I came up implied he didn’t think I would be successful. That can be damaging and I don’t want it happening in my classes.
- I may want to discourage mix-gender pairs, as strange as that seems. An analogous situation occurred in my AP class this last year — a really high powered boy/girl pair went to work on a neat quiz game for their final project and though the girl often had better instincts as to how to design their code, she didn’t trust herself and tended to defer! In the end, the boy spent most of the time at the keyboard, the same way Yaw made my string-splint. She may have had a better overall experience working with another girl.
- On the other hand, I may want to encourage mix-gender pairs and be more deliberate about coaching the girl to assert herself. I really did enjoy fixing my bike but to get there I had to put my foot down and I think it’s important to do that sometimes.
In the end, I fixed the bike and had some interesting thoughts about teaching while Yaw made lunch but I’m still a little puzzled — I’m not bad mechanically, I enjoy working with my hands and I’ve definitely spent more time in a shop than Yaw has. So why do I systematically defer when things need fixing or tinkering with?
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i feel a need to fix things immediately even though my initial solutions often prove inefficient. in such situations, if others do not seek control or exude confidence, i will simply take charge.
i suspect such traits are driven more by nature than nurture. if you want your female students to lead, they’ll have to purposefully take and confidently retain control.
Have you considered the possibility that it is *you* who are the sexist? Why do you insist on seeing everything through the lens of gender? Why does the thought never occur to you that Yaw would’ve behaved exactly the same way with a male who he considered inexperienced or inexpert at repair? I have had the exact same kind of experience, where a male would take charge in such a situation, and I am a male. I have had plenty of times where I sat back and did nothing more than make encouraging remarks while some other male took charge and fixed something of mine that was broken. What’s more, I’ve been in the exact same role when it was a *woman* who took charge of the situation, when it was some area in which she had more expertise. Blah-blah-blah-blah gender roles; you come off sounding like a whiner.
On the positive side: kudos on stepping up to the plate and joining the world of motorcycling! It was one of the best decisions I ever made, and I am sure you will find it likewise! Endless fun! I welcome you with open arms.
On what basis do you claim that I see everything through the lens of gender? I’ve actually worked very hard not to do so but as I see more student interactions in my classroom, I’ve noticed some disturbing trends and it was interesting to me to run into an analogous situation in my own life.
Your argument that gender should be entirely discounted would hold except that I’m not inexperienced mechanically, that I WANTED to complete the repair and that I was confident I would succeed. One thing Yaw did mention is that I didn’t project confidence, and that may simply have been what he was reacting to. I don’t know why we had the responses we had — it truly doesn’t make sense. Like you, I’ve had experiences where women took charge and others where men deferred, so maybe it was just a freak occurrence. All I can say is that I notice a lot of similar interactions in my classroom and that I want to be more deliberate about making sure that all my students are equipped to take charge if and when they so desire.
As to your allegations that I’m a sexist whiner… *sigh* Maybe so.
agreed that my response would likely have been the same if a male had projected such doubt about the repair. the fact of the matter is hélène is more mechanically experienced than i am, and yet she deferred. i believe she has deferred in other domains where she is expert.
that she defers is personality driven, but i’d wager such personality traits (for whatever reason) occur more in women than in men. given that, it may be prudent to be aware of such things when boys/girls work together on projects.
While I do not know Ms. Martin very well, the little time that we shared showed her to be a very assertive and confident person. Her new ride seems to personify that.
On a more serious note, I have gained an appreciation of how observant and thoughtful that she is about things around her, particularly CS education.
I guess I didn’t really make that obvious for those who happen to wander by and haven’t met me but I do think that I tend to be fairly assertive, maybe even to a flaw at times. That’s what makes my deferring tendencies inexplicable and in some sense disturbing. Similarly, I see this in female students who do also generally tend to be assertive in their lives.
Thanks for the kind words, Kyle. And where do we read your thoughts?!
e-mails to plt-scheme or APCS listserv. Sorry, no blog.
Deborah Tannen would say, I think, that it’s a gender-based difference in communication styles. If a man and a woman have equal expertise in a particular field, the man will probably project more expertise and confidence, while the woman will err on the side of “not showing off”, to avoid looking arrogant or overconfident.
If two women approach this sort of problem, they’ll both “not show off”, they’ll each read the other’s expertise accurately, and they’ll probably work together to solve the problem (after discussing sympathetically how they both feel about it).
If two men approach this sort of problem, they’ll both project expertise and confidence, they’ll each read the other’s expertise accurately, and either they’ll work together to solve the problem or (more likely) the one with more expertise will solve the problem.
But if a man and a woman approach it, the woman will overestimate the man’s expertise and the man will underestimate the woman’s, just because their communication styles are differently calibrated. As a result, the man will probably end up solving the problem even if the woman knows more about it.
Of course, all of this is the “average” woman and the “average” man: there’s a lot of variance within each group, but the above seems to be a very common outcome.
I don’t really have the right vocabulary to describe and make sense of these kinds of situations. Thanks for this perspective. Sounds like I should pick up a copy of You Just Don’t Understand!
I believe this just means you need more opportunities to explore your repair skills – and I can’t think of a better place to explore those skills than at the next 2-Fast track day (maybe I shouldn’t have presented the track day in that light). The one at Pacific on 8/11 includes womens only sessions throughout the day so you can get to know all of your fellow female compatriots. If you commit to going I just might have to drag my bike down there…
BTW, thanks for the good session on Scratch.
=) Nice plug! I’m considering going and will let you know if I do.
I hope you have an opportunity to use Scratch with your students — keep me posted!
A minor comment on classroom management and pair programming — I set a timer in class and have the kids trade off who’s typing every 10 minutes — it forces the less dominant kid to step up a bit rather than zoning out.
On the less serious side how do you like your baby Ninja? I almost bought one for my wife but she is 5″ 10″ and was not interested in folding that much. We bought a Versys instead. If you really want to learn to ride that thing take it to one of the local tracks. The tracks will have non-race days where you can just ride without having to worry about a semi changing lanes on you. The tracks will often offer riding lessons for those who want to know more than just the basics. Well worth the money. I get over to the Seattle area from Missoula several times a year on my Concours. I will keep an eye open for a chick on a bright orange Ninja.
=) Let me know next time you’re in Seattle and we can chat about CS education and motorcycles!! The bike is really more of a red color but it really does look orange in my pictures. I’ve been hoping to get to a track day… soon, hopefully!
I’m 5’8″ and it’s the perfect size for me. Overall, I really love the bike and would recommend it in a heartbeat. I don’t know how much two inches of height would affect its comfort, but I do have a couple of Ninjette friends who are taller and haven’t complained…
Next time I come that way I will give you a buzz. It usually takes me two days to get to Seattle. There are so many great little back roads along the northern Washington strip I like to play on on the way over that a 600 mile trip ends up 800 or 900 by the time I get there. Fun stuff.
Hello, I just wanted to share with you a conference I started in 2010 called JUGRZ WMC, Just Us Girl RiderZ Women’s Motorcycle Conference. It’s about women having the opportunity to get hands on either for the first time or to share what they know about wrenching. This is a women’s only event, which allows the women riders to not be intimidated.
Liked your story, hope to see you riding about.
Corky D.